Playing Scrabble in English Lessons – Preparations

suitable for students from the age of 12

  • group work: 4 students per group
  • Time: minimum 45 minutes
  • Topic: The pupils revise and practise vocabulary and spelling through play.
  • Assessment: none (could be performed in a contest - Highscore)
  • Material:
    • 1 large Scrabble® grid
    • letter tiles (4-5 sets, depending on the number of groups)
    • lots of small magnets
  • Preparations: Make the large grid and the letter tiles. You may also let your students make the Scrabble grid. I would recommend a small group of students because the teacher has to explain and help a lot.
  • How to make the game: The size of the grid should be appoximately 70 x 70 cm. It must be large enough to be fixed on the board. Don't use too thick paper for it so that the magnets will stick. The original background of Scrabble is green. As green paper is often not available in large sizes I used white instead. The colour of the Double letter square is light blue; I substitued this colour with green. The official rules of the game have been simplified. We used the size of 70x70 cm.

1. Draw the grid: 15x15 squares (size of one square: 4.5x4.5 cm)

2. Make the coloured squares. Write or print:

  • Double Letter Score 24 times on green paper
  • Triple Letter Score 12 times on blue paper
  • Double Word Score 16 times on pink paper
  • Triple Word Score 8 times on red paper.
  • Cut out the squares (4.5x4.5 cm)

Here is an example:

Double Word Score

Now glue the coloured squares onto the grid. You find the complete grid down here. (We have left out the words and used only the colours.)

Scrabble Grid

3. Make the tiles. Use normal white paper and write or print the letters and their score values. Here you see the scores values and the letters for the English version of Scrabble®.

  • 0 points for the empty tiles
  • 1 point for the following letters: E, A, I, O, R, N, T, L, S, U
  • 2 points for the following letters: D, G
  • 3 points for the following letters: B, C, M, P
  • 4 points for the following letters: F, H, V, W, Y
  • 5 points for the following letter: K
  • 8 points for the following letters: J, X
  • 10 points for the following letters: Q, Z

One set of tiles consists of the following letters

  • 2 empty tiles (joker)
  • 1x : J, K, Q, X, Z
  • 2x: B, C, F, H, M, P, V, W, Y
  • 3x: G
  • 4x: D, L, S, U
  • 6x: N, R, T
  • 8x: O
  • 9x: A, I
  • 12x: E

Here are two examples of the tiles:

Tile E Tile K

Depending on the number of students you will need 4-5 sets of letter tiles. Store each set in a separate bag.

How to play Scrabble®

Used with the permission of Mattel.

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